Product Description:

This two-fer CD reissue combines two successive Dean Martin albums both released in 1963. It would be hard to imagine Martin's buddy Frank Sinatra doing an album of country-oriented material, but Martin's easygoing style, very much in the tradition of Bing Crosby, who also readily handled Western songs, was much more versatile. The arrangements by Hollywood hands Don Costa and Marty Paich have only elements of the countrypolitan sound to them, and, for the most part, Martin chose to cover material by middle-of-the-road country artists like Eddy Arnold and Jim Reeves, so the material was not that much of a stretch to begin with. Where it was, such as on the version of Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line," the results were not as satisfying. And Martin's unconcerned interpretations tended to ignore the often lachrymose lyrical sentiments. "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love With You)" and "The Middle of the Night Is My Cryin' Time" are songs about crying in your beer, but the arrangements are chipper, and Martin, despite an image as anything but a teetotaler, never sounded sufficiently bothered by heartache to be hanging out at the honky tonk. This is not really a country music fan's collection, lacking authenticity in its arrangements and its singing, but it is another flying visit to a foreign clime for the Dean Martin aficionado. ~ William Ruhlmann